and maybe how I'd like to frame it. But we'll read through it like we have in the other two classes together, and we'll comment on it together. That sounds good. So concentration makes us think of the Sanskrit word samadhi, or it makes me think of that. which is about awareness or the concentration that we bring to our mindfulness practice. And I think the chapter is about that, Samadhi, but I also think it's about much more than that and that The chapter is about how, in our practice, we should try to include everything.

[01:11]

And that's kind of how I'm going to talk about it. Practice as including everything. So I'll start reading. True concentration does not mean to be concentrated on only one thing. Although we say do things one by one, what it means is difficult to explain. Without trying to concentrate our mind on anything, we are ready to concentrate on something. For instance, if my eyes are on one person in the zendo, it will be impossible to give my attention to others. So when I practice zazen, I'm not watching anybody. Then, if anyone moves, I can spot them. So when you're sitting up here, it's easy to kind of picture what Suzuki Roshi is talking about.

[02:27]

Because when you sit up here, you can see everyone in the room. But when we're sitting Zazen facing the wall, it seems a bit trickier. But I think what he's talking about here or what, when we sit on the cushion and We can just focus on our breathing. We can just focus on one thing. Focus on the wall. But how do we focus on everything if we're facing the wall? But I think it's possible. And they...

[03:28]

And that this, what he's talking about is what we sometimes call shikhandaza, just doing. Or in Vipassana what is sometimes called choiceless awareness. That there's a way of paying attention where we're paying attention to everything and not just one thing. Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of compassion. Sometimes portrayed as a man, Avalokiteshvara also appears in the form of a woman. Sometimes she has 1,000 hands to help others, but if she concentrates on only one hand, then 999 hands will be of no use.

[04:35]

This is really great. So, We normally think of Avalokiteshvara with 1,000 hands as a symbol of compassion, that Avalokiteshvara, an incarnation of the Buddha, is there for everyone, to save everyone, and is holding out a hand of compassion for everyone. But here, Suzuki Roshi is using it in a context of talking about concentration, expansive concentration where we concentrate in a way in which somehow we can include everything. And so this symbol of the thousand hands becomes very powerful because it works on many levels. And I think the whole chapter is about how he kind of develops this idea of expansiveness, of including everything, of always having the thousand hands open and not just the one hand.

[05:59]

And he even seems to be saying that you can't have one hand working if you're not having all the hands working. And I like to think about this as another way of saying the whole body and mind. It's very easy to experience, for me, to experience concentration as something here, you know, in our head. Awareness is here, learning as something that comes in our head, that comes about through thought. But really, we're learning all the time and in so many ways. We're learning unconsciously, we're learning through our body, we're aware through our body, we're aware really in a completely mysterious way.

[07:07]

And I think this is another thing that this chapter is about. And he develops this in many ways, that the way that we concentrate, the way that we are alive, the way that we are related to everything in the universe, each other, is completely expansive, completely mysterious, And what we need to do is get out of the way. Does anybody want to say anything at this point? Yeah. What occurs to me is that however you hear what he's talking about is concentrating on one thing, but it's concentrating on one thing at a time. And it's not like you're concentrating on everything at one time.

[08:15]

You concentrate on one thing at a time, but it moves from whatever's happening. Which is versus another idea of concentration, which is you just stay zoned on one thing, and everything else you just ignore, and you just pick one thing. Which I think is a way of concentrating, but what he's getting at is concentration which It can move from moment to moment, but it's still concentrated on one thing, but it's moving. In the sense that it's not vague. In the sense that it's not a vague everything. It's actually focused. But it's open to everything that comes in. You could concentrate on it. Right, no, you clarified it, I didn't express it very well. That the kind of choiceless awareness, or this vigilant, you could say vigilant awareness almost, if that we're really aware and concentrating, then as every moment comes up, we become aware of it, and whatever's happening in that moment.

[09:23]

And it could be you moving, or it could be Lori moving, or it could be whatever. But I think the key is the openness. Yeah, which he starts to talk about maybe in the next paragraph, actually. Yes. Well, I really like this metaphor at the beginning where he talks about how the room looks to him. He talks about having a large, he does talk about having a large and soft awareness. what was presented to most Americans at that point, which was really about single-pointed concentration and awareness, which of course is another way of practicing.

[10:56]

So this is, you know, this was something, it was something new and little Yeah, thank you. I like that word soft. That helps, soft and open. And I find that I'm able, for me to do it, sometimes it helps to focus on my body, first parts of my body. and sort of work through my body. And then the next step is to say, well, can I focus on my whole body at once? Which seems like, can you really focus on your whole body at once? But you can. And to do it, it requires this kind of soft openness that Alan is, this kind of feeling thing that Alan's referring to. And you can find that you can be aware of your whole body at once. And then from there, I think you can kind of expand more.

[11:58]

Yeah, that's why Suzuki Roshi likes the frog. I remember when I got this thing about how the frog is sitting down. But yeah, it's like we're open to whatever in our surroundings is coming alive. Like it says, we get a signal, like being open to a signal from our surroundings. And that's what we're concentrating on. We're not concentrating on our little egotistical thoughts. Right, he talks about that later. And it's even, sometimes to think about it in terms of just one signal kind of doesn't do it justice because we're much more, we have to pay attention to so many signals and the experience of being, the soft focus of being inclusive means that we're taking in a lot more than just, you know, the fly that's coming across that we're ready to grab with our tongue.

[13:10]

John? I wonder if you could say something as far as, you know, that awareness issue. Is it any different from concentration? Is concentration something in addition to just kind of like bare awareness? I like the word awareness a little better in some ways. Concentration has that sense of effort or striving. or that single-minded thing. But it's good for us to cultivate concentration too. But awareness seems a bit more expansive than concentration.

[14:13]

Well, I don't want to get hooked on the words so much. But I do think that the title of the chapter is something of a koan. To say, to concentration, he is sort of talking about your question, true concentration isn't like this narrowing thing, it's this more expanding thing, which seems counterintuitive to the words that we're using. I'm sorry, can you remind me what your name is too? Sean. Sean, that's right. imagine being in a mindful place, staring at the wall, and then if anyone moves, to be concentrated on only one thing.

[15:40]

So I'm not thinking about something. I'm thinking about nobody, and I'm looking at the wall. And in thinking about nobody, I can see anybody move. So I can see anything in my mind being spoken. If I'm concentrating on just one topic in my mind, I'm not going to see what the other thoughts in my mind. And for me, in a way, true concentration, that is, watching. I'm not watching anybody. In Western ideas, we have this idea that concentration is really focusing on one thing and getting a good sense of it. And he's saying that true concentration is concentrating on that. Yeah, that makes sense. So let's keep going. From ancient times, the main point of practice has been to have a clear, calm mind, whatever you do.

[16:45]

Even when you eat something good, your mind should be calm enough to appreciate the labor of preparing the food and the effort of making the dishes, chopsticks, bowls, and everything we use. With a serene mind, we can appreciate the flavor of each vegetable one by one. We don't add much seasoning so we can enjoy the virtue of each vegetable. That is how we cook and how we eat food. So this reminds me of what Naomi was saying, the universe in a grain of sand. And I suppose it is possible, and people talk of having the experience of maybe looking at a grain of sand and experiencing the whole universe. And when we eat, before we eat, we chant, let us know how this food comes to us, which is much like what he's saying here. Now, it seems, and I'm wondering what other people think, that what he's asking us to do here is even beyond sort of

[17:57]

what we think of as Samadhi in a kind of strict sense. He's reminding us to remember things that are even beyond the scope of the room, beyond the scope of seeing someone move, to actually let our understanding of the way things work, of history, of nature, of society, of culture, inform how we experience everything. And this to me is kind of a radical thing he's saying in a way, because we're so used to thinking about concentration as an exercise in the moment, and that it can only contain what is right in front of you. But he's asking us to be a bit more imaginative about it.

[19:01]

And then he goes on and he says, to know someone is to sense that person's flavor, what you feel from that person. Each one has his or her own flavor, a particular personality from which many feelings appear. To fully appreciate this personality or flavor is to have a good relationship. then we can really be friendly. To be friendly does not mean to cling to someone or to try to please them, but to fully appreciate them. Now he's really talking about important things. When we meet someone, and I don't mean meet them for the first time, I mean meet a friend, when we are present for them, Are we present for them in the same way that he's talking about being present for the food? That is really understanding who they are. And maybe that means understanding, you know, what kind of day they had, if we know.

[20:13]

What kind of family life they have. What kind of childhood they have. Maybe we don't know those things, so that can't... inform our sense of their flavor. But we often do. And to really meet a person, to have compassion for them, to hold out one of our hands, we need to include everything. I kind of question, what's the difference between concentration and awareness? Maybe this is helping me see what the difference is in that concentrating on this person, you have the ability to concentrate on this person because you're slowed down enough that you have the time to ask them how their day was, and her day was, and you can remember what you know about.

[21:18]

his background and what his job's usually like, or if his dog's usually causing problems or whatever. That's different than awareness. I don't know, so concentration is, I mean, it is concentration. You're soaking into a particular subject. Yeah, and again, I don't want to get tripped over words. And maybe I'm wrong about how I'm reading this. But I do read it as him asking us to include everything when we are meeting a moment, when we are meeting a person, when we are trying to be present. And that everything concludes a whole lot. I think, well, Mark had to say, oh, Peter and then Mark. I'm not quite sure which order it was. with the imaginative part.

[22:26]

I understand what you're saying, but I can't see the words back here, so I can't remember the exact words and I can't read them in the book, but from what I heard, it doesn't sound like looking at the food in the bowls and then thinking about where they came from. Appreciating them through imagination. What I hear you saying is just not with your eyes or with your mind, you appreciate the labor and the trucker and the potter and all of that, because it's all included right there in the bowl and in the food themselves. I appreciate what you're getting at, but I don't think it's an imaginative thing that he's encouraging us to do at all. That could be, but I don't think that you can look at the bowl and include all those things unless you allow some cognitive and memory thing in there.

[23:36]

I mean, unless you were previously acquainted with the process by which the food you know, gets grown, gets picked, gets shipped, gets sent to us, gets cooked. Unless you had some, you know, familiarity with that, then you could not see all those things in that bowl. So that's what I meant by including everything. And maybe I went too far by saying it's a thinking, imaginative thing, but I think there is a little bit of that in there, in that moment. I don't know, Mark. we should try to essentially taste others' flavor.

[24:55]

Metaphor here. And if we taste others, then we are tasted by others. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and the taste thing and what you're saying is do we, when we meet people, are we just meeting them here? But if we're tasting them, if we're taking them in with our whole body mind, it really is mysterious. And knowing someone is, and how we know them, is not something that we can really describe or define in a list or through kind of discursive thought.

[25:59]

And how do we get out of the way so that we can really, really taste someone? Nancy. What I was thinking, If I could become, I want to say everybody, that's what I really want to say, but I'll say just me. If I'm aware of my needs, then I can approach a situation or the food with gratitude. And it's a quick moment. I mean, it isn't something that what philosophizes about. It's just, I have this need because I'm human. and hungry, thank you, you know? Or a person approaches, and if I'm kind of settled, I know that I want to encounter someone, or there's something I would be bringing to the situation.

[27:04]

I'm not saying, it's not a neediness, but it's an awareness of the alternative being isolation, you know? a chilly situation. Yeah, that makes sense. We have to include everything that arises in us, too, in every meeting. It's not just, it's, that's part of the meeting, too. I think that's what gives the snap and the quickness to things and the joy, if you're lucky. Yeah. Laurie? Another way this is resonating for me right now, getting back to his thing about thinking is like, so when we meet each other, we have everything we know, we think we know about them, but we can't, that's what we can't concentrate on. We can't zero in on our idea of them from past experience, so the way we can move, it's like whatever in them

[28:07]

or in us, you know, so that we're open for a whole bunch of new, unexpected things to happen. And when they do, we're open to them. And we see them. And so, that's how we keep sort of, you know, countering the tendency to freeze up around our ideas. Yeah, it's tricky. I don't want the idea of including everything to, like you say, freeze or make ourselves subordinate ourselves to our preconceptions or our history. We have to be open to the mystery. To appreciate things and people, our minds need to be calm and clear. So we practice zazen, or just sitting, without any gaining idea.

[29:13]

At this time, you are you yourself. You settle yourself on yourself. With this practice, we have freedom, but it may be that the freedom you mean and the freedom Zen Buddhists mean are not the same. To attain freedom, we cross our legs, keep our posture upright, and let our eyes and ears be open to everything. This readiness or openness is important because we are liable to go to extremes and stick to something. In this way, we may lose our calmness or mirror-like mind. Once again, there's a lot here. I like this sentence, this readiness or openness is important because we are liable to go to extremes and stick to something. It reminds me of something you were saying earlier, Cole. And it's just another way of describing kind of what he's trying to get at, this, what Alan called this soft focus or what Lori is referring to, this openness, or what I'm trying to talk about in including everything.

[30:31]

is that we get lost or we fall when we stick to things. We stick to an idea. We stick to a preconception. We stick to an emotion. We stick to a thought. Yes, Mark? Would you also add, we literalize? Yeah. Zazen practice is how we obtain calmness and clarity of mind, but we cannot do this by physically forcing something on ourselves or by creating some special state of mind. You may think that to have a mirror-like mind is Zen practice. It is so, but if you practice Zazen in order to attain that kind of mirror-like mind, that is not the practice we mean.

[31:39]

It has instead become the art of Zen. Could you read that again? Zazen practice is how we obtain calmness and clarity of mind, but we cannot do this by physically forcing something on ourselves or by creating some special state of mind. We may think that to have a mirror-like mind is Zen practice. It is so, but if you practice Zazen in order to attain that kind of mirror-like mind, that is not the practice we mean. It has instead become the art of Zen. Diss Allen. With this practice, we have freedom, but it may be that the freedom you mean and the freedom Zen Buddhism mean are not the same.

[32:59]

To attain freedom, we cross our legs, keep our posture upright, and let our eyes and ears be open to everything. This readiness or openness is important because we are liable to go to extremes and stick to something. In this way, we may lose our calmness or mirror-like mind. Well, this is a good koan. How can sitting in one place, crossing our legs, enable our freedom? Yeah, we have an idea that freedom is the freedom to get things, to have specific experiences as opposed to other experiences.

[34:13]

That I have the freedom to choose this over that, which is just another way of sticking to things. And what he is asking us to look at is a freedom that by sitting on the cushion or carrying Zazen into our life as a way to include everything, then we have absolute freedom because it does not matter what is happening. It doesn't matter Our freedom is independent on choosing. Our freedom is just in our capacity to be with the moment. Elizabeth. I guess the way that I hear it,

[35:27]

The way that I hear Suzuki Roshi, and the way that I hear us, I feel two different emotions. So Suzuki Roshi, he's speaking to an audience that is hyper-individualistic back in the 60s, and we still have it in a very contemporary way, but I'm just thinking of his audience. you know, wow man, I'm not going to conform to the 50s, I'm breaking loops kind of thing. And I equate that a lot in my English literature background in terms of why do people write sonnets? Because there's a freedom located in that. You have a form and you can jam places. And with my practice, it just seems very, actually very like, ordinary. It's a tool, it's a new method, the self-focus for me, as we were speaking earlier.

[36:37]

So that's the first emotion. The second emotion is, I think I hear, and I'm not sure if this is what you mean, Greg, but I feel like I hear it sometimes. I think I hear it, sometimes I feel like I hear it from Alan, but I'm not sure either. What's this? Absolute freedom. It's just like, now I'm free. I always hear, I was lost, but now I'm found. I don't know, it's just something, a little extra twist. Yeah, let me drop the word absolute. All's I mean, or all that I think that I'm learning is that that I found more freedom through Zazen because, because it's beyond picking and choosing.

[37:47]

That feeling in Sashin where, of joy. at whatever is happening because I've chosen not to change whatever is happening. I've chosen just to experience it. And so there's a no choice. And in that no choice is what I meant by absolute freedom. The freedom, I don't have to depend on anything. I don't have to depend on the circumstances. I don't have to depend on what I chose to do or chose not to do. I'm not dependent on anything except for what is happening right now. And that's all that there is anyway. Does that make sense? That, to me, seems like a kind of absolute freedom. I don't like the word absolute, but a freedom that is not dependent on picking and choosing.

[38:51]

And that is a very powerful thing to have in our life because we don't have, we can't, Because the way our life happens to us is full of grief and heartache and hardship that we don't pick and choose. And how do we deal with that when that happens? Do you think Martin Luther King would be worried about relativism when he's talking about this? Um, no, I think that the power of Martin Luther King was that he understood this very thing. That it didn't, and that's why he could love his enemy because, um, The freedom is from inside.

[40:07]

It is not conditioned or conditioned. He was fighting for freedom outside, circumstances. But he understood that... I'm getting completely lost here. But we're out of time, so I will... I think that Martin Luther King's religion provided him a framework that's just similar to what we're talking about.

[41:09]

I don't think that he believed that he could get rid of oppression, suffering completely. I think he thought those were parts of life in some way and that that he had an acceptance of the human condition that is similar, but not the same as maybe ours, Buddhist, but just to frame it in terms of suffering, that his understanding of the fact of suffering and that he wasn't trying to get rid of it is kind of the same thing that gave him the freedom that we're talking about to fight the fights that he did without resorting to black and white. Does that make sense? He critiqued relativism. He critiqued the norm. He was very specific. including the high members of the Episcopalian Church.

[42:19]

We shouldn't go down this path too far, but you're thinking that some of these ideas that we're talking about are on the road to relativism. Okay. Well, he had problems with the social conditions of the world and he named it very graciously. So, I mean, his acceptance of humanity and our common condition was agape. you know, in terms of loving his enemy. But it wasn't like loving his enemy for everything that that person or people are about.

[43:21]

It was very specific and very angry and critical. Yeah. That they were basically not going to help save all human beings. Yeah, I don't think that including everything means that you never take a stand, that you lose sight of and the relative right and wrong. I think quite the opposite, including everything, allows you to help to meet suffering in the most helpful way. and without doing more violence by leaving things out. Okay, so we are at the art of Zen.

[44:29]

The difference between the art of Zen and true Zen is that already you have true Zen without trying. When you try to do something, you lose it. You're concentrating on one hand out of 1,000 hands. You lose 999 hands. That is why we say, just sit. It does not mean to stop your mind altogether or to be concentrated completely on your breathing, although these are a help. We may become bored when you practice counting, excuse me, you may become bored when you practice counting the breath because it does not mean much to you, but then you have lost your understanding of real practice. We practice concentration or let our mind follow our breathing so that we are not involved in some complicated practice in which we lose ourselves attempting to accomplish something. I'll just read one more paragraph.

[45:39]

In the art of Zen, you try to be like a skillful Zen master who has great strength and good practice. Oh, I want to be like him. I must try hard. The art of Zen is concerned with how to draw a straight line or how to control your mind. But Zen is for everyone, even if you cannot draw a straight line. If you can draw a line, just draw a line. That is Zen. For a child, this is natural. And even though the line is not straight, it is beautiful. So whether or not you like the cross-legged position, or whether or not you think you can do it, if you know what Zazen really is, you can do it. Wow, that's just, I love this paragraph. So that's, that's, it's very powerful and very radical in a way to approach everything

[46:57]

and to find the way to be that child drawing the line. It's a very subtle thing he's saying, and I don't know that I completely understand it, but it's very easy to come to practice and think One is going to find the way, get some formula, get some device, get some exercise or practice that's going to do everything for you. And instead he is saying we practice to put all that stuff down and that there is a way to be like that child with nothing extra, no extra striving, and that that

[48:24]

in being completely natural in that way, that's including everything. That's true concentration. It doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, a child doesn't worry so much. I mean, some children do, and it's too bad, you know, trying too hard to write the line. I'm worried so much about the mechanics and the perfectness of it. I wish I could live my life more like that. Well, I think if you're concentrated... As an adult, it doesn't matter if he draws a line. If you concentrate on the line that somebody draws, if you just look at the line, And you don't think it should be straight.

[49:26]

You just look at the line. That's what he means by concentration. And if you're thinking, well, I think it should be straight, because straight lines are better than wobbly lines, that's something different. That may be concentrating on a particular idea, but that's not concentrating on the action. Yeah, I think he's also... Oh, I think he's also referring... I'm sorry. Go ahead. You don't even have to think about everything. You just... There's a line. That's right. That's right. That's right. It's not thinking. Including everything is not thinking. It's allowing the whole body and mind to be in its most natural state of experience. And, uh... Yeah. Does anybody want to say anything about... I guess we can't... Yes?

[50:33]

I was also talking about, you know, during our meditation, we're trying in some way to draw a straight line. Right. Yeah. That's nice, yeah. The most important thing in our practice is just to follow our schedule and to do things with people. You may say this is group practice, but it is not so.

[51:38]

Group practice is quite different, another kind of art. During the war, some young people, encouraged by the militaristic mood of Japan, recited to me this line from the Shishogi. To understand birth and death is the main point of practice. They said, even though I don't know anything about the Sutra, I can die easily at the front. That is group practice. Encouraged by trumpets, guns, and war cries, it is quite easy to die. So maybe we can talk about this for a little while. And I like not to go in the direction of politics, necessarily. But what about our own practice here? I think it's easy sometimes to fetishize our practice, to turn it into group practice, like he's talking about here.

[53:00]

to not question it, to kind of see that it, think that it's going to do the work for us. We idealize it sometimes. We idealize our teachers. We idealize Berkeley Zen Center. We idealize this way of sitting. We idealize these rakusus. Sure. I was just going to read the first sentence. The most important thing in our practice is just to follow our schedule and to do things with people. I'll just stop there for a second. He's contrasting that. That's very simple. Very simple practice versus group practice, which is sort of a little bit more, uh, Group practice is quite different, another kind of art.

[54:08]

During the war, some people, encouraged by the militaristic mood of Japan, recited to me this line from the Shushogi. To understand birth and death is the main point of practice. They said, even though I don't know anything about that sutra, I can die easily at the front. That is group practice. Encouraged by trumpets, guns, and war cries, it is quite easy to die. That kind of practice is not our practice either. Although we practice with people, our goal is to practice with mountains and rivers, with trees and stones, with everything in the world, everything in the universe, and to find ourselves in the big cosmos. When we practice in this big world, we know intuitively which way to go. Does anybody want to say anything about group practice?

[55:32]

It's easy. Also... It's a pretty subtle difference. I mean, I think he's saying it's a huge difference, but it's pretty subtle. It is pretty subtle. Practice with people is different from to be carried away by the mood of people. It's tricky. It's tricky. I mean, it's very easy here for our idea of practice to be defined by a kind of tyranny of the people who practice the most. I was just gonna say, my sense is that Right away my thought is that you just follow the schedule, so we're just here, and you're giving and receiving.

[56:42]

You're just doing. And I don't think, for me, when there's identity involved and people and personality, it's much harder to do that. When you're with people and it's just, you know, you're receiving, you're giving, and everyone's supporting everyone, that's totally opposite, I think, of this group. I think he's making a very clear distinction there. Yeah, I didn't mean he wasn't. It's just... Where one moves into another, there's a subtle line. So Mark and then Marty. The subtle one is that he's also saying in the beginning that I was even going to ask, he said, our job is to sit Zazen and to be with other people.

[57:48]

So he's sort of in some way saying the other end that it's important, really important to be with other people. Oh yeah, he's saying that for sure. Oh yeah, well, I think so. I think so. And I think the group practice he's referring to is another idea, another example of getting caught by one thing. Getting caught, how did he put it in another, liable to go to extremes and stick to something. That becomes easier when a lot of people are doing the same thing. And it is, I think, a tricky thing in a community like we have, when we are all doing the same thing in some ways.

[58:54]

And I think it becomes even more important that we stay soft, open, and try to include everything and everybody, no matter how they practice. Alan, and then, I'm sorry, Marty and then Alan. I was thinking about bowing, and I think about how I think of bowing in Zen. I guess it's partly compared to how I thought about rituals like that, or physical actions like that, growing up in Catholicism. And I feel like when I'm bowing in Zen, the Buddha, and it's like this kind of single-minded mental idea, it's like you're not, you don't have to control your mind, you're just bowing, which is this kind of, it's like a shell, it's like there's a form which you're agreeing to, that we're all agreeing to follow, and we're all, in some sense, we're all like soldiers marching in a line.

[60:25]

But inside... I mean, the inside-outside thing is a little funny, but in some sense, inside, the mind is free. So I feel like it is like a middle way thing, where in some sense, we are all doing the same thing, but there's something in the middle. Which I appreciate. Yeah. Maybe the trap is when we start thinking about it, those things that we do as special, like the bowing, that is not empty as you describe it, but special. And that all the things we do are special. That they're not just things we do. They're not just the schedule. carries, everybody has to completely carry the band.

[61:55]

Every individual has to take complete responsibility for the entire sound of the band. responsibility. So I think, same thing, each person has to bow. And when we bow, regardless, there are various things we can think about. I usually think about my hands, my knees, my back, my legs. And I'm sure that each of us, we couldn't describe it, but probably there are a lot of us in here who could mimic expressing the practice and we're doing it together.

[63:01]

You know, so it's not this kind of conformity or, you know, just uniformity. We're not striving for that. We're striving for true individual expression. That's something that we do together, I think. I hope so. Peter? about how we are dependent and independent. That the person who practices alone is independent, and the person who goes to the front to die is dependent. The person who practices with other people has to evolve. Uh-huh. Ria, did you have your hand up? Yeah. This is Ria, right? That's Raya. Raya, sorry. Well, I think that the mountains and rivers and, you know, just practicing with the whole because when he was talking about how when somebody's with the sounds of the trumpets, they're ready to go and die, I think about how there's so many sounds and so many things that we're always exposed to that color our perceptions so much that we can't even imagine not heeding the call or something.

[64:28]

And I think about that a lot around Christmas. There's so many, like, sounds and colors that culturally designate Christmas. There's almost this call to heed that and to be with the group mind. So, at moments like that, I always think about, it's important to be practicing with the whole world at once, or to be even practicing beyond the whole world, with all of nature, with all beings, with all things. Because otherwise, it becomes, anything can become habitual. Anything can become kind of tight. Tight, yeah. This kind of, even forgetting, I guess habits can become so strong or even certain sounds that we hear every single day consistently, we don't even realize we're hearing them and being programmed or affected by them.

[65:47]

mountains and rivers feels also very important. Yeah, that makes sense. And it makes me think about our open discussion Monday morning, which was kind of about this. I don't know who was here and who wasn't. But what you say about not just hearing what we're used to hearing, the trumpets, but hearing everything, the mountains, the rivers, that we really need to include in here everything if we're going to really practice. And everybody. So I'm going to reread part of this paragraph that you were referring to.

[66:57]

That kind of practice is not our practice either. Although we practice with people, our goal is to practice with mountains and rivers, with trees and stones, with everything in the world, everything in the universe, and to find ourselves in this big cosmos. When we practice in this big world, we know intuitively which way to go. When your surroundings give you a sign showing you which way to go, even though you have no idea of following a sign, you will go in the right direction. I have trouble with these two sentences. I think they're hard for me because I they seem like possibly an invitation to like magical thinking. You know, I see a sign, an omen, but I hope that's not what he's saying and I choose. He's saying, that's right, give you a sign even though you have no idea of following a sign. Right. So I think it makes me think about getting out of the way again, not

[68:07]

Getting stuck on one thing, but allowing the totality of our experience to guide us. Our whole body and mind. Peter? It reminds me very much of Sojourner Ocean's focus always on the practice of water. In one sense, seeing a sign in the universe or getting a signal from the universe is like the container changes shape. Water just goes where the container goes. Mark? It seems like it connects right back to the beginning of the chapter.

[69:15]

I think he means surroundings is synonymous with your readiness. Once you've stopped grabbing onto anything, you can be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention. That open, that soft open paying attention. What about taking it one step further even? But Peter was referring to this phrase, even though you have no idea of following a sign. And we say that actually, we never have any idea why we're doing what we're doing. How we're navigating this whole thing. And we may think we know, we have a story. We have a story that this is, you know, I got here, I got here because I did this, and then I did this, and this happened to me, and I, you know, had therapy, and then, you know, whatever.

[70:22]

You know, and that's the story, but it really has no bearing on really how we got here. And that practice is allowing that mysterious process to happen without getting in the way so much, without getting fooled like in the last class, not always so, getting fooled by things. What's wrong with magical thinking? It could be getting fooled. Well, that's a good question. And I liked Richard's response when I asked, well, how do we not get fooled by things?

[71:30]

And Richard said, well, we get fooled by things by wanting something to be a certain way. And magical thinking is kind of a hook for doing that. But there is a kind of symbolic consciousness that's real, I think. And that's more enlivening, and sometimes deeply important. It's not exactly magical, but it is magical. I'll ask John's question. Are you talking about intuition or are you talking about something else? Synchronicity could be a part of something like that.

[72:31]

I don't have a proclivity for this myself. And I do wonder whether it can be, is a trap similar to the other traps that he's talking about in here? But I don't want to, I mean, I don't want to push that. Sean. looking at nobody in some way and the intuition in some way.

[74:08]

How about this? The magician is this. That's it. The magician is the present moment. That's the only magician there is. That's the only magic there is. And we try our best to be open, soft, and with it. And this leads right to the next paragraph. Don't, don't, don't, don't. To practice our way is good, but you may be practicing with a mistaken idea. Still if you know I am making a mistake, but even so I cannot help but continuing my practice, then there is no need to worry. If you open your true eyes and accept the you that is involved in a wrong idea of practice, that is real practice.

[75:11]

You don't like that? You can only be where you are. You can only be present to the magician of the present moment. And you can only try to include everything that you can possibly include. You can only try to be open, soft, aware to where you're at. And that could include making mistakes. That can include being deluded. That can include misreading a sign. I bet I, yeah, I think I'm there a lot. I have the whole picture, I don't know how to get it, but this is the best I can do. Yeah. Like that. Okay. Mark. My sense of what now meant. doesn't exist.

[76:55]

Anything can be in the present, right? A symbol can be there, a feeling can be there, the wind. It's magical if it's magical. But not with self-satisfaction.

[78:14]

It doesn't matter. To my mind, this is what the difference between Jack Kerouac being Zen and real Zen. Jack Kerouac. Well, you can just do whatever you want. Real Zen. No, we can't do whatever we want. We still have what we need to do. Right. So no self-satisfaction, but no self-flagellation either, right? Right. And sometimes I get it, and a lot of times, generally, I don't.

[79:18]

But there's a big difference there. What's the difference? When I use the word mistake, when the concept, the idea of mistake that gets involved in it. It's a kind of a shame that gets involved with all this

[79:49]

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